AUSTIN, Texas — When Bonnie Richardson became the first girl in state history to win a team high school track title by herself, she was just a small-town Texas kid who worked on a ranch and trained on a dirt path with potholes.

Then her phone started ringing. A lot.

Sports Illustrated put her in the magazine after last year's title. TV networks set up interviews. Texas A&M, which would normally go nowhere near a tiny community like Rochelle looking for track athletes, even threw a scholarship at her.

Now she's back to try it again.

"It was good that now people kind of know where Rochelle is. It helped my school," she said. "But all it was pretty weird. I'm not used to talking to people."

The Texas state meet starts Friday and Richardson, now a senior, has qualified in the same five events she competed in last year: the long jump, high jump, discus and the 100 and 200 meters.

Richardson competes for Rochelle High School in Class 1A — the smallest — and she's the No. 1 or No. 2 qualifier in all her events, making her a favorite to win the team title all by herself again.

But Richardson — the only girl who runs track at the 59-student school — said the team trophy is not her goal. In fact, she sounds kind of bored talking about it.

"That's never been part of the plan," Richardson said this week. "I just want to go out and do well and maybe win a couple of medals. Who cares about a team title?"

They cared enough in Rochelle, a town of less than 200 people located about 85 miles east of San Angelo and deep in the heart of Texas. Folks threw her a victory party after the 2008 crown. TV networks tried to set up on-camera interviews only to find the school and town couldn't set up a satellite connection.

Until she won the team title, Richardson had only heard from track coaches at small colleges who were interested in recruiting her. A&M operates in a different track universe. The Aggies women have swept the Big 12 indoor and outdoor team titles the last three years and the coaching staff liked what they saw in an athlete who can run, jump and throw.

"After she won, the phones started ringing of the hook," said her coach Jym Dennis. "Being at a school this small, athletes don't usually sign with Division I schools."

In Rochelle, Richardson trains on a track that is really just a dirt ring dug and graded into the rocky soil. When she can, Richardson drives to nearby Brady to the all-weather track over there.

But Richardson is used to roughing it.

When she's not on the track or in school — where she recently graduated as her class valedictorian — Richardson works on a ranch, tending to livestock, cutting down trees or clearing fields.

"I like to be outside. I hate sitting down in a room all day," she said.

Richardson will have a busy day Friday when she competes in three of her five events.

At noon, it will be the long jump, where she's the top qualifier with a regional mark of 18 feet, 9 inches. At 3 p.m., she'll throw the discus, where she's No. 2 with a mark of 127-5. At 6 p.m., it's the high jump. She's the favorite with the top qualifying height of 5-8.

The sprints come Saturday. She's the top qualifier in the 200 (25.48 seconds) and No. 2 in the 100 (12.47.) The two races are about 90 minutes apart.

If she finishes according to her qualifying marks, she'll earn 48 points, six more than her team-winning total last year.

Dennis said they haven't talked about trying to win another team title. He notes that Richardson was helped last season when no school had a dominant relay team. Team events are heavily weighted toward relays, where winners earn 20 points.

"It really all kind of fell into place last year," Dennis said. "I really don't want to put that kind of pressure on her."